It Takes a Big Pair of Scissors
by HecateA
Summary: Little Astoria doesn't find the idea of a soulmate as comforting as it is worrying. Who is fate to create these expectations she may not be able to meet? Oneshot.


**Author's Note: **Listen, so I know y'all are getting _so _spammed and I am so sorry, but I'm playing a **Piñata** game in the Hogwarts thread and so I am pumping out as much as I can. I'm also playing a Romance Awareness game about Soulmate AUs, so you'll notice a lot of those cropping up. If it gets really crazy, I'll create a multichapter fic that will hold all the Soulmate drabbles together—but I thought this one could deserve to stand on its own. Enjoy!

**Disclaimer: **The following characters belong to J.K. Rowling, and this story derives from her original works, storylines, and world. Please do not sue me, I can barely pay tuition.

**Warnings: **Terminal and chronic illness

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**Stacked with: **MC4A; Shipping War; Harmony of Souls Eternal; Not Commonwealth

**Individual Challenge(s): **Hola, Bonjour, Jambo; Rainbow Focus; Misunderstood; Slytherin MC; Blissfully Tragic; Seeds; Tiny Terror; Golden Times; Old Shoes; Themes and Things A (Truth); Themes and Things B (Loss); Themes and Things C (Book); Ethnic & Present (Y); Rian-Russo Inversion (Y); In a Flash

**Representation(s): **Red String of Fate

**Bonus challenge(s):** Second Verse (Tomorrow's Shade); Chorus (Bechdel Test); Demo (White Dress; Wabi Sabi; Mouth of Babes; Infinity)

**Tertiary bonus challenge: **Keen

**Word Count: **466

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_**Shipping Wars**_

**Ship (Team): **Astoria Greengrass/Draco Malfoy (Stellar Legends)

**List (Prompt): **Summer Big List (Promises)

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**It Takes a Big Pair of Scissors **

Astoria sat on her mother's lap, with the big book of legends open in front of them. Most of the characters on the page didn't make sense to her; she couldn't read Mandarin quite well enough to decipher the stories past what the beautiful water colour instructions could tell her.

So she leaned back against her mother and listened to her bring to life the legends on the page before Astoria as she retold them. She knew that Mama always told them in a little bit of a different way, Daphne had told her that. That was why it was so important to listen so carefully every single time.

"And if you followed the red string from one person for a long, long time—through all the things that life can and does offer—you would reach their soulmate: the person that life itself thought they were destined to be with… That's how we all connect."

"Do you and Dada have a string?" Astoria asked.

"Of course we do," Mama said, kissing the top of her head. "Everybody has a string. We can't see it and if I tug mine, Dada can't feel his, but we know it's there."

"Huh," Astoria said. She looked at her own fingers, wondering which finger her string would be on if she truly had one. "I feel bad for whoever has the other end of my string."

"They would be lucky to have you, Astoria, don't be ridiculous," Mama cooed.

"They won't have me for long," Astoria replied matter-of-factly, because she indeed knew that this was a matter of fact. "That string is going to get cut really quickly. Maybe even before I meet them. Then what will they do?"

Mama was quiet for a minute. She closed the book and readjusted how Astoria rested in her arms, holding her a little bit tighter.

"Sweetheart, destiny is destiny," Mama said. "It would take a very, very big pair of scissors to cut something that strong. And it would take somebody very, very foolish to turn you away."

"Mama, when Yeye died, Nainai was so sad," Astoria said. "I don't want to make anyone sad—especially not someone I love."

"Your grandmother was sad, we all were, but more than anything Nainai was happy for all the time she had spent with Yeye," Mama explained carefully.

She kissed the top of Astoria's head.

"Sweetheart, you're seven years old. Maybe I should have waited to tell you this story; I don't think you can understand all of this quite yet, and that's okay. But here is my promise to you: one day, you will find someone who will be happy for everything that you can give, and who won't want anything more."

"Because we'll be on the same red string," Astoria said.

"Exactly," Mama nodded.


End file.
